The message to be displayed is specified by the pointer expression or the string expression. If the parameter to the DISPLAY statement is a pointer expression, execution of the DISPLAY statement causes the characters to which the pointer expression points to be displayed on the ODT. The pointer expression must point to EBCDIC characters and the message to be displayed must be terminated by a null character (48"00").

If the parameter to the DISPLAY statement is a string expression, execution of the DISPLAY statement causes the contents of the string specified by the string expression to be displayed on the ODT. The string expression must be of type EBCDIC.

Display messages from programs run in CANDE appear on the user terminal if the MESSAGES option of the CANDE SO command has been specified.

A maximum of 430 characters can be displayed.